66-year-old Benjamin Schreiber is very much alive, but hasn’t stopped him from using his death as a way of explaining that he actually served his life sentence for murder.

When Shreiber collapsed in his prison cell in 2015, doctors had to resuscitate him five times, which technically means that he died for a brief period of time before being brought to life. Three years later, the convicted murderer filed for post-conviction relief, claiming that he was being held in prison illegally. He figured that because he had briefly died in 2015, he had technically served his life sentence and should be a free man. His sentence was supposed to end when he died, right? the fact that he had been resurrected didn’t matter.

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Onion hardly seems like the best vegetable to base a soft drink on, but Onionade doesn’t contain the kind of onion you’re used to, but a new type that not only doesn’t make you cry when you chop it, but it unusually sweet as well.

Back in 2016 we reported on one of the most interesting inventions to come out of Japan in the past few years – a tear-free onion named “Smile Ball”. Developed over a period of 14 years by scientists at House Foods Group, Smile Ball onions release almost no tear-inducing compounds when chopped or eaten raw, and have a much sweeter taste than regular onions. Available in Japanese grocery stores for the past two years, Smile Balls have been marketed mainly as tear-free alternatives to the common onion, but now its producers want to promote the vegetable’s sweetness and pleasant flavor as well. And what better way to do that than by producing an onion-based drink called Onionade?

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A North Carolina woman who got a power washer for her birthday is using it to turn her concrete driveway into a canvas for ephemeral art, and draw a lot of attention online in the process.

Dianna Wood, a retired office worker from Burlington, North Carolina, had been wanting her own power washer ever since she used one to help one of her friend’s mother to get her hose ready for sale. She loved it so much that when her birthday came around, her husband knew exactly what to get her as a present. For over a month, she used it clan the patio, the dirty shutters, the fence around her home, and even the garbage cans. It was great, but by the time she got started on her concrete driveway, Dianna was already looking for way to spice things up. So instead of just cleaning the concrete, she decided to use the power washer to exercise her artistic talents.

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A popular seafood restaurant in Singapore has been criticized online for its “cruel” claw machine which gave patrons the chance to catch a live crab for $5 a token.

The chief executive of House of Seafood has had to issue a public apology after a viral video showing people using a pink claw machine to catch live crabs drew a lot of criticism both from the general public and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). In a statement posted on Facebook, Francis Ng claimed that the live claw machine was actually meant to educate children about marine life, while critics of the controversial attraction said that it caused unnecessary harm to the crustaceans and encouraged people to see the live creatures as thing to be won in a game. As a result of the backlash the claw machine attracted, House of Seafood decided to temporarily close the machines at all of its locations.

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Rebecca Munkombwe, an 11-year-old girl from Zimbabwe, is being hailed as a hero for allegedly saving a 9-year-old friend from the jaws of a crocodile by jumping on the reptile and gouging its eyes out.

According to Zimbabwean media, Rebecca and her friends had just got back from a swim in a stream near their home village of Sinderela, when they heard the screams coming from the water. The 11-year-old was shocked to see her 9-year-old friend Latoya Muwani being dragged into the water by a crocodile. While all the other children were petrified or running scared, Rebecca Munkombwe allegedly ran toward the water, jumped on top of the crocodile and started gouging its eyes out until it loosened its grip on Latoya.

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Chinese researchers have come under fire for using live, immature pigs as test dummies in high-speed crash simulations that killed seven of them immediately.

Animal rights activists around the world accused the researchers of unnecessary cruelty, after it was reported that they had used fifteen live pigs as crash test dummies for a study. The animals were allegedly denied food 24 hours before the gruesome tests, then strapped in for high-speed simulations that caused them various injuries, including bleeding, laceration, fractures, abrasions and internal bruising. Seven of the pigs were killed instantly, while the rest survived for another six hours. Scientists then carried out meticulous autopsies to find out how the pigs were injured and killed.

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A 650-kilogram bull that managed to escape from a Croatian slaughterhouse last Friday managed to get the attention and support of an entire nation as he continues to elude his owner, police and veterinarians.

The elusive animal, nicknamed Jerry, after the famous mouse in the “Tom&Jerry” cartoon, has been evading his would-be captors and roaming the Croatian coast, outside the town of Split, since last Friday. His owner had sold him to a slaughterhouse, but shortly before being put down, Jerry managed to escape a corral where cattle intended for slaughter were kept and vanish into the nearby woods. Slaughterhouse staff can’t explain exactly how Jerry escaped, but apparently this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.

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To highlight a new type of water purification system, a restaurant in Kuurne, Belgium, has started serving its customers free drinking water recycled from its sinks and toilets.

The water served at the Gust’eaux restaurant in Kuurne these days is the same as any other potable water – it has no smell, no taste, no color – so it’s impossible to tell that it’s source is actually the restaurant’s toilets. By using a complex, five-step purification system, Gust’eaux is able to turn its sewage into a water so pure that it has to be enriched with minerals before being served to clients.

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Baunei, an idyllic mountain village on the Italian island of Sardinia, has launched an appeal to visitors asking them to stop relying on the directions of Google Maps when driving around the area.

Salvatore Corrias, the mayor of Baunei, claims that in the last year alone the local fire service or mountain rescue team have been called 144 times to help stranded tourists who had followed the directions of Google Maps. Apparently, people are often using the GPS-powered app to reach so-called “hidden beaches” around Baunei and end up driving down lanes that are unsuitable for cars or onto off-road tracks. To stop this from happening, local police have put up signs that read “Do not follow the directions suggested by Google Maps”.

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An Indian man recently shocked airport staff in Abu Dhabi, because his passport showed he was born in 1896, which would make him 123, the oldest human to have ever lived.

Swami Sivananda’s passport shows him to be a year older than France’s Jeanne Louise Calment , who holds the Guinness Record for the oldest verified person in history -122 – but the problem is that the only proof he has comes from an old temple register.  Mr Sivananda also looks decades younger than his alleged age, but he credits his youthful appearance and good health to leading a simple and balanced life, yoga, and a frugal, spice-free diet. His celibacy may have something to do with his longevity as well, he figures. He’s been trying to have his name included in the Guinness Book of Records for three years, but he has been having trouble proving his age.

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Remember Vitaminwater’s “scroll free for a year” challenge that dared people to go smartphone free for a whole year to win $100,000? Well, this New York woman is eight months into her smartphone-free year, and just four months away from claiming grand prize.

Vitaminwater made news headlines last December when it announced its unique challenge. Thousands of people applied to be chosen as the perfect candidate to spend a year without touching their smartphone, but in the end, the only person who got to try and survive for an entire year without a handheld was Elana Mugdan, a 29-year-old fiction writer from Queens, New York. Eight months into the challenge, she claims it’s been a freeing and eye-opening experience that showed her just how dependent she had become to her smartphone. Even though there are times when she misses her handheld, she plans to go on living without it even after the challenge ends.

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A male Russian Blue cat who was left to roam freely in a pet hotel in Sichuan, China, ended up needing a glucose drip to recover after mating with at least five female cats in just a few hours.

News of the cat’s exploits was shared on Chinese social media by his owner, a certain Mr. Zhao, after receiving complaints from the pet hotel staff. Apparently, workers there neglected to feed his pet Russian Blue, named Xiaopi, and simply let him out of his cage to roam freely with all the other felines at the hotel, despite being explicitly told that he had not been neutered. Zhao wrote that the staff simply opened the cats cages and went home, leaving them to their own devices for the whole night.

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One of the weirdest questions you can find on law forums is “can I sue for a broken condom?” (don’t ask me how I know that). Well, a woman in China went even further than that, suing the man who delivered the condoms she ordered too late, thus causing her unwanted pregnancy.

Chinese media recently reported the somewhat funny case of a young woman from Xuzhou, in Jiangsu province, who allegedly sued a deliveryman for bringing the box of condos she ordered online eight minutes late, and thus indirectly causing her to become pregnant. Apparently, the woman, referred to as Su (pseudonym), had her boyfriend over one evening in August, to watch a movie together. The movie lasted longer than expected, so the young man ended up spending the night. And that’s how the trouble started.

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This past summer British media reported the bizarre job ad posted by an eco-conscious couple looking to pay a chef £5,000 to prepare a wedding banquet out of roadkill.

The unusual ad, featured on Bark.com, the UK’s leading online local service marketplace, mentioned that the couple had already sourced about 20kg of roadkill, including squirrel, pheasant, rabbit, partridge and deer, and were looking for someone with experience in preparing courses out of wild meats. The ideal candidate would able to skin, butcher and joint the cuts of meat, as well as prepare them in such a way that the guests wouldn’t know what meat they were eating.

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A young copywriter for an advertising agency in New Zealand recently made international headlines for bringing a professional clown as a support person to a company meeting in which he he expected to be fired.

Employers in New Zealand are legally required to offer employees the chance to bring a “support person” to so called pink slip meetings, to help them cope with being laid off. But while most people opt to bring a close friend or a family member, one young copywriter decided to bring a professional clown. Upon receiving an email from management regarding a discussion of his role in the company, and the mention of a support person, Josh Thompson expected the worse, so he prepared for it. Only instead of asking a someone close to accompany him, Thompson spent $200 to hire a professional clown. It turned out to be one of the most awkward pink slip meetings in history.

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